Ryan Macpherson

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I'm an engineer and venture capitalist by training who invests in and helps startups get to scale where their innovation can have a positive impact on people and the planet. Fortunate to do this work as Autodesk's climate innovation and investment lead - working across the business and its philanthropic arm, the Autodesk Foundation.

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Early on in my career I was afforded an special opportunity to lead a technology transition program for the Department of Defense. It should come as no surprise that DoD, much like other big "g" Government programs, has tremendous purchasing power but is full of inertia and not the quickest at adopting new technology. This program derisked new technologies by proving their performance in real buildings all around the world, leading to unheard-of purchase orders that ultimately saved energy, water and tax payer dollars. Since then, much of my career has focused on doing much of the same: helping startups go from idea to widespread commercial adoption by hurdling the many obstacles thrown at them. I've done just that through leading startup competitions (MIT Clean Energy Prize), VC investing using novel financial models (Single Family Office and PRIME Coalition) and actively advising/mentoring/judging world-class startups here in the Boston ecosystem (Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, MassChallenge, MIT Solve).

I'm a firm believer in using market forces to drive sustainable impact. Much of my time today with Autodesk is spent developing climate strategy, and building the financing mechanics needed to catalyze design-and-engineering based innovations to address the climate crisis head on.